Why should I use a broker? I can find a good deal myself

There are lots of places on the internet that provide comparisons, you can troll the net yourself and visit lots of lender websites, or you can go old school and visit a branch of all your local lenders to ask questions.

The problem is that lenders have restrictions that are not always up there in bold print with all their great offers, such as a maximum loan to value amount, post code restrictions, and so on. So not only do you need to do all the research to find a great rate, you then need to read and understand the fine print on each product.

We all hear about the discounts that lenders offer. How do you get these? How do you know if they exist? If you call a lender and they offer you a discount, are you getting all the discounts that they have available? There has to be a better way.

There is. Go see a mortgage broker.

Most mortgage brokers have access to 30 or so lenders (because of the size of our business we have access to over 60) and after asking a series of questions they can determine what type of loan you want, the features and benefits that are important to you, check your eligibility, then review the market and find the deal that then best matches your needs.  Depending on how prepared you are for your initial meeting this process could take as little as twenty minutes or so.

We hear you say “brokers only sell the loans that pay the highest commissions, not the loans that are best for us”. The fact is that under the current legislation we are required to provide you with a minimum of three loan options (unless there are only one or two suitable options), and generally speaking for a client with a good credit history the difference between the highest and lowest paying lenders is less than 0.1%, so the commission is rarely a consideration. In fact, within our business one of our top 10 lenders pay us less commission than any other. If we only choose on commission we would never use that lender.

Unlike the bad old days broking is now a highly regulated industry. Brokers are well trained and qualified, they must maintain a regular training and education program, loan files are regularly audited to ensure that we are complying with the regulations and providing good customer outcomes.

“Brokers are expensive”. The truth is that nowadays brokers provide an expert service and provide a genuine choice from a range of lenders that are competing for your business. Obtaining that expert service costs nothing, the broker is paid by the lender not the client so there is no cost for the service provided. In fact brokers have had the opposite effect. Over the last 20 years the average margin that a lender earns from a loan has fallen by near on 2% as a result of the competition that we provide. So to a degree the statement that brokers are expensive is right, but we have been expensive to the lenders, not the consumer.

So, if you’re looking for a loan there is only one smart way to do it “Go see a broker”.